


Set Sail

by Esselle



Series: Rumrunners [5]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Pirate, First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24756808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esselle/pseuds/Esselle
Summary: "You know who I am, boy?""I'm not aboy,"Shouyou says, seething. "And you're a pirate. Obviously."The captain steps closer. He's still unarmed; but every bone in Shouyou's body screamsdanger. He stands his ground."They call me the Dread Terror of the Seas," the man breathes. "Kingslayer. Captain of theInvincible."The air freezes in Shouyou's lungs."Kageyama… Tobio…" he whispers.--When pirates attack Shouyou's hometown, he doesn't see a threat—he sees his only chance at freedom.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Series: Rumrunners [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/807150
Comments: 29
Kudos: 537





	Set Sail

**Author's Note:**

> I have wanted to write KageHina's meeting in my Rumrunners AU for a very long time - so for day 1 of [KageHina week 2020](https://twitter.com/kagehinaweek), here's some pirate-y backstory ^^ (SO though this is part 5 of this series, it chronologically takes place before all the rest)

The town burns, and Shouyou runs towards the flames.

 _Pirates,_ the staff of his father's household had been shouting, as they secured the manor. _Pirates had made land, thirsty for gold, for whores, for blood._

They hadn't noticed Shouyou as he slipped through the shadows, his many years spent practicing escape from the prison of his room aiding him in those moments before the front doors were shut, the gates to the estate slammed shut and barred. 

He flees the stifling safety of the manor without a second thought, and heads for the blazing rooftops, the acrid smell of smoke. 

_They are beasts from a nightmare,_ Shouyou has often heard it said, about the thieves and murderers who make their home upon the seas. But the people saying it don't know the nightmare of seeing the sea out of their window, day after day, and knowing they'll never get to sail it. The navy protecting Shouyou's town is large and powerful, and as it keeps pirates out, so it keeps Shouyou _in._ His father, the rear admiral, would never let his precious son discover its perils for himself; no, better to marry Shouyou off rich and loveless. 

But now—now pirates have invaded his peaceful, stagnant little town, and Shouyou is hell bent upon being aboard their ship when they set sail again. 

The port town is indeed on fire, and very much in shambles, when he arrives at the main square. It's hot, and the smoke stings his eyes, and he's suddenly very aware of how fine his clothes are in comparison to the rest of the townsfolk running this way and that. He sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Desperately he spins in place, looking for… he doesn't know what. How will he tell a pirate at a glance, their rakish demeanor? And what happens when he _does_ identify one? Can he just walk up to them and demand they let him join their crew? 

Somebody screams several buildings over—it seems as good a sign as any and he runs that way. He identifies the establishment as a tavern, somewhat less on fire than other buildings surrounding it, so he pushes his way inside. 

The scene inside makes him quite sure he's in the right place. Several navy officers have been trussed up and tossed unceremoniously onto the floor. The tavern barmaids cower behind the bar, clinging to one another, but they appear unharmed. Two more men stand over them all, and they are, without a doubt, pirates. 

Their clothes are at once outrageously lavish and intimidatingly worn—tall scuffed boots to the knee, silks and velvets with a bullet hole or two, tailored coats with scorch marks and sword slashes. These are vagabonds of wealth, and there is no uncertainty that they've killed to amass their fortune. 

They're both tall, but the taller of the two has golden hair and a pair of small, rounded green spectacles through which his merciless eyes peer down the end of a lacquered flintlock pistol. The other has a softer face, freckled, but set in determination. An abnormally large crow perches on his shoulder, and he holds in either hand a wicked, curved sword. Both drip red. 

"If you didn't enjoy how that first bullet felt, I'll tell you now, you shouldn't look forward to the second," the bespectacled man says. "I will ask once more, and if the answer is unsatisfactory, I'll have to ask one of your friends on account of your being dead."

"Kill me then," one of the navy men spits. 

_"Where,"_ says the bespectacled man, gun aimed to the officer's forehead, _"is our captain?"_

"Filthy dog!"

The blond man's lip curls, and he cocks the gun. 

"Wait!" Shouyou shouts. Instantly, the pirates whirl to face him. It becomes much harder to envision demanding entry aboard their ship with a gun pointed at his heart. Fortunately, he has a plan. "If they've got any prisoners, they'll be down in the navy's holding cells. I can take you there!" 

"Who the hell are you?" Spectacles demands. 

"Someone who…" _Wants to be one of you_ didn't seem the wisest thing to say in the current situation. "Someone who hopes to avoid any more bloodshed." 

"What makes you think _I_ want to avoid that?" the man asks him dryly. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill all of you and find the holding cells myself?"

 _Oh, dear,_ Shouyou thinks. "B-because—they're heavily guarded!" 

"Does that seem like a deterrent to us?" 

"I know the best ways to sneak in!" Shouyou says, and then in a final desperate plea, "I'm the admiral's son!" 

The man stares at him, eyes cold and unreadable. The swordsman next to him leans in and says something to him too quietly for Shouyou to hear. After a long, frightening moment, the man in glasses lowers his gun. 

"Lead the way." 

*

Shouyou is unusually adept at navigating the navy compound not out of any fondness for the place, but because it's the fastest path to the sea, and he had learned long ago that the last place his father's men would look for him was right under their very noses. 

This wisdom serves him well again that night; it would seem that with the town under attack from pirates, the last thing the officers expected was for the pirates to come directly to their doorstep. 

They encounter only a few guards, and those are dispatched with terrifying ease by the two demons following in Shouyou's wake. Shouyou swears the swordsman's crow acts as a scout for them, taking to the skies and cawing every time someone approaches. 

The holding cells are underground, where the air is stale and damp, and Shouyou holds the torch aloft for them to see where they're going. Rats and roaches skitter away from its glow, and dead-eyed men in cells watch them silently as they pass.

Then they round a corner, and a hoarse voice rasps out, "Who's there?" 

The two pirates with Shouyou push past him. The swordsman calls out, "Captain?" 

"Yamaguchi?" 

Shouyou creeps along behind them, both wanting to see, and not wanting to draw attention. 

The light from the torch illuminates a dark figure, sitting in a cell, but this man is not like the others. Instead of the hunched, clawed posture of a broken man, he lounges with his back against the wall, hands behind his head, long legs stretched out in front of him. And as the firelight sparks in his eyes, Shouyou sees they are far from deadened. 

They burn, like the town his crew has set alight. 

The man in glasses hurries forward with the key ring he's pilfered from the body of a guard. The captain gives him a significant look. 

"And Tsukishima, too? You haven't taken over my ship and crew by now?" 

"You know I have no interest in commandeering that sorry excuse for a boat," the man, Tsukishima, replies. "Or your idiotic crew, for that matter." 

"You call them idiotic, and yet, here you are with the rest of them to break me out of jail," the captain observes. 

"It was his idea," Yamaguchi says.

"Shut up, Yamaguchi." Tsukishima wrenches open the cell door. "That ship deserves a king befitting its condition." 

"And a first mate befitting its crew," the captain says, gripping Tsukishima's arm so the other man can haul him to his feet. They share a grin that is less friendly and more feral, and dripping with mutual irritation. 

"As heartwarming as this reunion is," Yamaguchi says, "we have half the navy out to skin us alive right now!" 

"Right," the captain says. "Seems the men have 'em good and distracted in town. Let's pull back and get to the ship." He steps out of the cell, sees Shouyou, and stops dead. 

Shouyou feels much as though his heart has done the same. The pirate captain has stepped into the light, and Shouyou can see him fully for the first time. 

He's tall, too, and sturdy; big in a way that defies mere sight, truly larger than life. He wears simple trousers and a dirty shirt, likely the ones he was captured in, so the scars of his hands and arms are clearly visible, as well as the breadth of his shoulders. His face is stern, _angry,_ despite the fact that he was just rescued from certain death in the gallows. His black eyebrows pull down, eyes framed by his hair… those eyes. 

Blue like the sea under the night sky, like the deepest depths of it. Shouyou could fall into them. He doesn't know how to swim. He thinks he'd drown. 

The captain is the handsomest man he's ever laid eyes on in his life. 

"Who the _hell_ is this?" the captain asks. "Why's he still breathing?" 

"He brought us here," Yamaguchi says quickly. "He's—"

"The admiral's son," Tsukishima finishes. 

The captain looks Shouyou up and down, eyes piercing. "This whelp?" 

Shouyou rears back, shocked. "Excuse me?" 

"You're not," says the captain. 

"Not _what?"_

"Excused," he clarifies. "You know who I am, boy?" 

"I'm not a _boy,"_ Shouyou says, seething. "And you're a pirate. Obviously." 

The captain steps closer. He's still unarmed; but every bone in Shouyou's body screams _danger._ He stands his ground. 

"They call me the Dread Terror of the Seas," the man breathes. "Kingslayer. Captain of the _Invincible."_

The air freezes in Shouyou's lungs.

"Kageyama… Tobio…" he whispers. 

One of the most, if not _the_ most feared pirate on the high seas. Known as Kingslayer because he and his crew had crippled entire navies, left lands and kingdoms defenseless, unable to do anything but watch the vultures circling overhead. All the legends about him are steeped in mystery and blood. 

"How'd you get _caught?!"_ Shouyou blurts out. 

Tsukishima outright laughs. Kageyama blinks, and then scowls. 

"They didn't realize who they were _catching,"_ he snaps. 

_"Captain,"_ Yamaguchi says urgently. 

"Right," Kageyama snaps. "To the harbor. Tsukishima, don't let the boy out of your sight." 

"Wh-why?" Shouyou asks. 

"We need to get off this island, and it's not going to be easy. You'll be our hostage until such time as we see fit to release you," Kageyama informs him. "You may come in handy after all."

Shouyou's eyes widen. A hostage! This could work—they'll lead him right to the ship, and possibly even onto it. He can figure out a plan from there. Then he realizes the rest of what Kageyama has said. 

"'Come in handy'! Who do you think helped rescue you?!" 

"Shut up, and move," Kageyama growls, and Shouyou decides not to argue further when he feels the tip of Tsukishima's pistol digging between his shoulder blades. 

Yamaguchi's crow takes wing immediately upon their emergence from the cells, flying in the direction of the town. Kageyama and the rest cut a more direct path towards the harbor, where their ship must be anchored. 

"You left your ship in the harbor?" Shouyou pants, hurrying to keep up with the three much taller men. "You're not afraid it will be boarded?" 

"You think the three of us are the only fighters among my crew?" Kageyama asks. "Each of my men is worth ten of your navy officers." 

"They're not _my_ navy officers," Shouyou says. "And _you_ were still caught."

Kageyama rounds on him. "Point that out again and I _will_ cut out your tongue." 

"Alright!" Shouyou squeaks. 

Kageyama glares at him, before turning back around. "Why have you helped us, in any case?" 

"Why… oh!" This is his chance. "Because… it's my intention to join up!"

"With who?" 

"With—with _you!"_ Shouyou sputters. 

This time, Kageyama stops dead in his tracks. "What?" 

"I want to come with you!" Shouyou tells him. 

Kageyama stares at him a moment longer before speaking to the other two. "This isn't the admiral's son. He's addled, you two couldn't see that?" 

Tsukishima shrugs. "Addled or not, he's clearly wealthy. He'll fetch a good ransom either way." 

"What if it's a trap…" Yamaguchi says uncertainly.

"It's not a—I'm not _addled,_ and it's not a trap!" Shouyou shouts. "I want you to make me a part of your crew!" 

The three of them stare at him in stunned silence for another moment, before all three burst into laughter. 

"You?" Kageyama barks. "Part of _my_ crew? What would you do, scrub floors?" 

Shouyou bristles, but juts his jaw out. "If I must!"

"He barely looks like he could lift the bucket," Tsukishima sneers. 

"Or the mop," Yamaguchi chuckles. 

"I don't know what's got you so eager to die, boy," Kageyama says with one last laugh, "but best you do it in whatever comfort you've got here." 

"It's here that makes me want to die!" Shouyou yells. "It's not comfort, it's confinement! And I'd rather take my chances out there, I'd rather _die_ out there, than stay trapped here!" His eyes well with tears and he stamps his foot, feeling infantile and hating it. But this is his _only_ chance. They're all watching him now, quiet, and he has to make them _see._

But Kageyama only shakes his head slowly. "I don't need your corpse stinkin' up my ship." 

"But—" Shouyou begins to gasp, when there's a roar of voices, and then they are ambushed. 

Several navy officers spring from their hiding places in the rocky outcroppings that litter the coast to attack the pirates. Shouyou is nearly caught in their onslaught—someone grabs him by the back of the shirt at the last second and bodily flings him clear of the slashing swords bearing down upon the group. He hits the sand hard, rolls, lays there sluggish and dazed. The blast of muskets being fired at close range sets his head to ringing. 

It was Kageyama who threw him out of the way, he realizes, as he gets to his feet. Kageyama, who had no weapons once they sprang him free. Kageyama, his _only ticket off this godforsaken island._

With a roar to rival the officers, he charges back into the fray. He thinks he sees Tsukishima give him a look of absolute disbelief before he slams into one of the officers fighting Kageyama at waist height. He's not big enough to do it, but he rocks him hard enough to almost take him off his feet, and Kageyama has the chance to secure the upper hand, dropping his attackers with little more than his bare hands. 

"Hold, filth!"

One of the officers has managed to break free from the other two, and has his musket leveled right at Kageyama. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi have their own fights to attend to—the man will shoot before Kageyama can reach him. 

"Wait—" Shouyou starts to say, which is the point where Kageyama grabs him and shoves Shouyou bodily in front of him to use as a human shield. Ah… perhaps not that unforeseeable an outcome. "Kageyama!" 

"See?" Kageyama says. "Told you you might come in handy."

Shouyou struggles. "You're the worst!" 

"How good a shot are you?" Kageyama asks the officer. 

The man doesn't budge, glaring at the two of them—then his eyes flick to Shouyou. His lips draw back in a growl.

"Traitor," he spits. 

_"Fuck,"_ Kageyama hisses.

The man fires. 

Shouyou shuts his eyes, expecting the pain, the bullet tearing through him… it doesn't come. Instead, he is wrenched to the side, and then Kageyama is roaring in pain behind him as the bullet misses Shouyou and digs a deep furrow into the pirate captain's shoulder instead. 

Even with a musket shot lodged inside him, Kageyama doesn't falter. He pushes Shouyou roughly behind him and then, arm hanging limply at his side, he charges at the officer who shot him, who is now frantically trying to reload his next shot. He gives up, flinging the gun to the side to draw his sword, but he's too late—Kageyama reaches him, dragging the sword from his grasp, before ramming him through on the end of his own blade. 

Shouyou sits down hard on the sand as Kageyama pulls the sword free. The man falls, twitching, to the ground. The pirate captain flicks the blood off the blade. Looks at Shouyou. 

"Looks like you're no use to me after all," he growls. "Run back home before I change my mind about killing you."

He whistles once—Yamaguchi and Tsukishima, who have fought off the rest of the pursuers, fall in line behind him. Shouyou stares after them, at their retreating backs, before coming to his senses. He scrambles to his feet. His limbs are still shaking. From fear? Disgust? 

Excitement?

"Wait!" he yells after them. "I can still—"

Kageyama turns on him, pointing the blade at him. Right at his heart. 

_"Go home,_ landlubber," he says. "You don't belong on the sea."

Shouyou blinks, eyes furiously hot. The ocean waves crash mere meters from him, and the man who rules them stands there on a moonlit beach, telling him he can't have them. The salty breeze stirs Kageyama's hair, the same breeze that will blow through his sails once he's clear of this place, and he thinks he knows what's best for Shouyou. Like everyone else in Shouyou's life. 

"Fine," Shouyou says, voice cracking. 

Seemingly satisfied, Kageyama turns, and he and his men disappear down the coast. Shouyou wipes his tears with the back of one grimy hand.

Then he follows them. 

There are blessings that come with being small and easily unnoticed. They may not include being enlisted right off the bat to join a ship's scoundrel crew, but they do allow him to slip by that ship's sentries quite unnoticed in the commotion of flames and plundering. He knows the routes to the harbor more intimately than Kageyama and his men, and even with their head start, he beats them to it by more than ten minutes. 

It's not hard to tell which ship is the _Invincible._ For one, it's swarming with activity, pirates getting ready to disembark while also managing to fight off the Royal Navy against all odds. It's not hard to find a moment of distraction to slip aboard—they aren't looking for stowaways, only red-clad officers with bayonets and swords, who are much less subtle about things. 

It isn't long before Shouyou hears a change in the shouts coming from the docks. He's found a dark corner tucked away behind some barrels that smell _objectionably_ of fish, but it's quiet there and well out of the way. 

"It's the captain! They got 'im free!" 

"He's been shot!"

Then a familiar voice bellowing, "It's just my shoulder, I'm fine! Weigh anchor! And don't let any of those bastards on board my ship!" 

A chorus of voices booms back, _"Aye aye, Cap'n!"_

Shouyou doesn't know how they do it. He's not suicidal enough to come out of hiding to try and see; he hears lots of shouting, screaming. The clash of steel on steel. The explosion of gun powder. And he knows many men die, but he does not see it. He hides, and feels as though Kageyama must have been right. He doesn't belong to this life.

But he'll learn. As the deck of the _Invincible_ begins to sway below him, wood creaking as they begin to pull away from the harbor, from the port town in flames, from the only life he's ever known, he vows it to himself.

He'll learn, or he'll die trying. 

*

Shouyou is awoken the next morning by a foot coming to a swift and decisive stop in his ribs. He doesn't know how or when he managed to fall asleep, but his return to consciousness is even more abrupt. He gasps in pain, but the ensuing coughing fit is borne more of fright than anything else. The kick wasn't hard enough to break anything. Just hard enough to be unpleasant. 

"It's alive!" 

"Of course it's _alive,_ how do you think it got on the ship?" 

"D'you think he's a spy?" 

"Well, he's doing a terrible job of it, if that's the case."

Shouyou sits upright abruptly, and the voices silence. The sun beating down on him now has rendered his hiding spot useless, and furthermore, he can barely make out the faces of the men surrounding him, silhouetted as they are against the bright light.

"Keep your mouth closed," one of them says. "Don't go givin' him no information, now."

"I'm not a _spy,"_ Shouyou says. "I'm trying to join your crew." 

The man who'd spoken before crosses his arms over his chest. "Sounds _exactly_ like what a navy spy would say." 

"Goshiki! Haiba! What are you both doing just standing around like scurvy-headed fools when we've still got the navy on our tail?" 

Both men jump at the voice, as does Shouyou, for he recognizes it right away.

"We got a stowaway, Cap'n!" one of them calls. The other grabs Shouyou by the arm and hauls him upright with almost no effort at all. 

The instant Shouyou locks eyes with Kageyama, he is sure he's a dead man. The apoplectic rage on the captain's face surely seems to guarantee it.

_"You—"_

Shouyou holds up his hands in surrender. "Let me explain."

_"I told you—"_

"You have to admit that I am impressively stealthy!" 

"I don't have to admit anything!" Kageyama roars. He surges forward, seizing Shouyou's collar, dragging Shouyou onto his tiptoes until they are nearly nose to nose.

Shouyou has the odd thought that Kageyama is close enough to kill him, just like he killed that officer the night before. But he's also close enough to kiss Shouyou, too. 

"Give me a reason," Kageyama says, _"one_ good reason not to disembowel you." 

"There are faster and less painful ways to kill me," Shouyou says. When Kageyama's face twists in fury, he yelps, "No, wait, that's not my reason!" 

"So looks like the captain knows him after all?" Shouyou hears Goshiki—or maybe Haiba, he isn't sure which—whisper loudly. 

"You could have let me die last night," Shouyou says. He stares into Kageyama's blue eyes and wills him to _see._ "You could have let them shoot me, but you _didn't."_

"So you came back to get me to kill you a _different way?"_ Kageyama asks in disbelief. "That wasn't mercy! You stopped one of them from killing me. I stopped one of them from killing you." 

"Pirates don't _show_ mercy!" Shouyou shouts back. "You could have let me die, but you _didn't,_ and when you did that you gave me a chance to find my way _here._ It wasn't mercy, it was a _chance."_

Kageyama closes his eyes and breathes very deeply and slowly for a moment. Then he releases Shouyou, dropping him back down to the deck. 

"You're delusional," he says.

"Maybe I am," Shouyou agrees. "But I think… I think you gave me a chance to live for a reason. Maybe I don't know what that reason is, but let me—let me prove to you. That it was the right one." 

They stare at one another, gazes locked in silent struggle. 

_Let me live,_ Shouyou wills Kageyama. _Let me finally_ live. 

"Captain," one of the other pirates, the dark-haired one, speaks up again, "we have reason to believe he might be a spy…"

"What reason," Kageyama says, deadpan.

"Uh." The silver-haired pirate scratches his head thoughtfully. "Intuition?" 

Kageyama sighs. "Damn you lot. Goshiki—you're in charge of him for now. Take him and—"

"Make him walk the plank?" Goshiki asks excitedly. 

_"Find him a pair of seaworthy clothes,"_ Kageyama says through gritted teeth. "If we even have any that fit." 

Shouyou nearly falls over. "You're—you're really letting me—" 

"Haiba, you help with showing him the ropes. And _don't_ let me catch sight of you," Kageyama says, glaring at Shouyou, "for at least a week, or I'll throw you overboard myself." 

"Y-yes, sir!" Shouyou says, saluting. "Er, Captain! Captain Kageyama, sir!" 

"Shut up," Kageyama huffs, and then he strides away, to go do whatever it is pirate captains do aboard their ships.

"YES!" Shouyou says, throwing his fist triumphantly in the air as soon as Kageyama is out of earshot. Somehow, against all odds, he's done it. 

"Don't get too excited," Goshiki says sourly. "I'm keeping my eye on you, spy." 

"I'm not a spy," Shouyou says again, with a wide grin. "I'll prove it." 

"Well, first things first," Haiba says. "You can help me hoist the sails."

"Excellent," Shouyou says. "What's that mean?"

The other two exchange a glance.

"What do you know about sailing?" Goshiki asks.

"Nothing at all!" Shouyou tells him cheerfully. 

He barely hears the two of them complaining. He's too busy taking deep breaths of that breeze, that very same that blew through his town. It carries on it the lure of danger, the promise of adventure—but now it's clearer, sharper.

He catches a glimpse of Kageyama toward the bow of the boat, his hair blown back from his face, dark coat billowing in that crisp salt air. He stands tall and firm, as sure of himself as a compass pointing North. 

For all Shouyou's years spent longing for it, he has no idea what this wind will bring him, where it will carry him, today, tomorrow… however long he can survive out here. 

But he knows no matter which way it blows, he'll follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure which of my stories to read next? You can **[check out my guide to my KageHina fics on Carrd!](https://esselle.carrd.co/)**
> 
> I'm on Twitter at [@Esselle_hq](https://twitter.com/Esselle_hq) (sometimes nsfw)! Writing updates [@ Esselle_on_AO3](https://twitter.com/Esselle_on_AO3)! I also have a [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/Esselle_hq)!


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